A smoke-free Saint Anne’s Hospital doesn’t guarantee smoke-free sidewalks for those on Middle and Ridge streets and other streets around the hospital.

Workers, forbidden to smoke anywhere on the property or any of their breaks except the unpaid 30-minute lunch break, fan out through the neighborhood to smoke. So do the spouses, children, and other family members of those in the hospital.

A little over a year ago, the hospital announced a new policy that eliminated all smoking and the use of tobacco products anywhere on its main campus and all satellite sites and locations. The ban also applies to cars parked on hospital grounds. The restricted items include cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco and electronic cigarettes. The policy applies to all hospital staff, patients and visitors. The policy was launched in conjunction with a statewide initiative by the Massachusetts Hospital Association and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health encouraging all hospitals to go tobacco-free.

But neighbors complained through the Saint Anne’s Neighborhood Association about employees and visitors to the hospital congregating on street corners or under residents’ open windows to smoke, about cigarette butts discarded on the sidewalk and rude answers from people when residents asked them not to smoke. The neighborhood association met with hospital representatives Monday night at the hospital. Hospital representatives attend all meetings of the Saint Anne’s Neighborhood Association.

Saint Anne’s Hospital Director of Strategic Communications said problems with smokers in the neighborhood are being dealt with forthrightly.

Wendy Bauer admitted that the hospital cannot control what employees and visitors do when not on hospital property but said employees are instructed to be considerate.

“We encourage our people not to choose one place as a smoking spot,” Bauer said. “We tell them not to litter, to take a Styrofoam cup with them.”

About 30 people, including the hospital representatives, attended Monday night’s meeting and complaints from neighborhood residents were not in evidence, though the manager of Saint Dominic’s Apartments, 818 Middle St., said one of her elderly tenants asked someone smoking beneath the window of her first floor apartment to cease smoking and was told, “Close your window,” The manager did not want her name used.

“The only way we know about this is if we are contacted,” said Saint Anne’s Vice President of Mission and Community Partnerships Susan Oldrid.

“I don’t see us going back to a designated smoking area," Bauer said. “We will be very direct with the managers of our departments about this matter.”

“Call the hospital if someone is not respectful to your request,” Oldrid said.

According to data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, 8,000 Massachusetts residents die each year from the effects of smoking, and an estimated 1,000 people die annually from the effects of secondhand smoke. A September 2010 DPH study stated there are an estimated 19,672 smokers living in Fall River, 28.2 percent of the city’s adult population. The statewide average is 15 percent.